Page 37 of Forged

By pure willpower alone, he was able to rub a small, unsatisfying orgasm out, but it was ruined by the sound of Macy joining her brother in crying.

“I didn’t hear them stirring,” Nick said, running back into the bedroom a second later, looking marginally cleaned up. He grabbed his pajama bottoms from the floor and nearly fell over putting them on, then reached for his robe on the wall hook nextto Bax’s. “They get upset when I’m not there when they wake up.”

That was all he said before tearing out of the room, through Bax’s flat, and over to his own.

A couple seconds later, as he gingerly pulled the pillow out from behind his back and winced as he sat up, Bax heard Nick cooing a morning greeting to his babies through the monitor.

A twist of irritation shot through him, but he forced himself to breathe it away and swing his legs around to get out of bed. He was dating a single father with two small kids. The kids would always be Nick’s priority. That was absolutely the way it should be.

But that didn’t stop him from turning off the baby monitor with a burst of jealous force and stomping into the en suite to take a shower. Things had been thirty seconds away from brilliant between him and Nick. He could have had the orgasm of his life and the deep, deep pleasure of Nick spilling his load inside him if the kids could have just slept for five more minutes.

By the time he was done with his shower and dressed for the day, Bax had managed to let it go. If he wanted Nick, and he most definitely did, he had to accept certain things about him. He liked the kids. He wasn’t a natural with them, but he liked them. He was learning. His whole life was new, so it was only right that he adapted to the additional newness of being with a man who couldn’t and shouldn’t make him the sole center of his focus.

That didn’t stop his brain from grumbling that at least Damien never pulled out and left him inches from coming because a baby cried somewhere as he headed downstairs to his new office.

“What’s gotten into you?” Rhys asked when Bax ducked into the arts center’s office to grab a tea.

Bax huffed an ironic laugh. It was what had slipped out of him that bothered him.

“Just the usual perils of dating a single father who needs to put his kids first,” he answered.

Rhys nodded. “Interrupted, eh?”

“Yep,” Bax replied with a sigh. “I’m trying not to complain,” he went on. “I’ve got work to do anyhow. I didn’t really need to spend the whole morning in bed.”

“How’s the new accounting business coming along?” Rhys asked.

Bax winced. “Alright. Not perfect. I need more clients before it can really be considered a business, and I’ll admit, I’m being picky about my clientele because of my mission.”

“Have you tried The Brotherhood?” Rhys asked. “I bet a lot of them need an accountant. Or how about your old friend Callum? The one who keeps trying to woo you to join his coven?”

Heat flushed through Bax. He didn’t exactly feel guilty about the way Callum had tried to call or text him a few times per week since they’d met at the winter festival. There was nothing flirtatious or suggestive about Callum’s messages. He just really wanted Bax to join his coven. His overtures were friendly and concerned for Bax’s well-being.

There was the tiny caveat that Bax had found out from one of his other friends, that Callum had stopped dating the guy he’d been seeing off and on for a year. But if Bax stopped talking to every one of his gay friends who had just been through a break-up, he wouldn’t have any friends left.

“Callum could be an option,” he admitted, taking his tea and heading out the office door, Rhys walking with him. “He owns a florist shop and has a lot of connections in the gardening world.”

In fact, Callum might be an excellent resource for finding work. As long as he wasn’t trying to swerve around Nick to get into his pants. Callum had seen the two of them together. He wassmart enough to figure out they were dating. Bax didn’t think he was the type to steal someone else’s man, or at least to try, since there was no way he’d be stolen from Nick, but you never knew.

He decided to try his connections with The Brotherhood first. Once he was settled in his office, he went through his contacts and compiled a list. It was still far too early in the morning to start making phone calls to old men with money, though, so within an hour, he hit a wall. That was the problem with starting a new business like the one he wanted. Working hours were all well and good, but you couldn’t sit at a desk for nine hours a day wishing and hoping clients would drop out of the sky.

It was getting close to nine-thirty by the time he decided to take a walk down to the forge to ask Nick’s opinion on Callum. He and Nick had been doing other things instead of their morning walks of late and he needed the exercise. Besides, if he was going to approach a guy who had even a hint of interest in him about work, he was damn sure going to run the idea by his boyfriend first.

He felt better just making the decision to seek Nick out. It was still cold outside, but spring was beginning to peek its way out from the browns and beiges of the landscape surrounding Hawthorne House. Soon, the earliest spring flowers, snowdrops and crocuses, would begin to poke up through the dead leaves. The trees would show pale green buds, then unfurl into full, green leaf.

It was a fitting metaphor for the new life he was building for himself. He was a new man discovering new things. And sure, it was painful to have your lover rush off to tend to his kids in the middle of sex, but at least they’d had the moment they’d had. He wasn’t even sure if Nick had rubbed one out in the bathroom or if he was starting his day with blue balls. Who knew? Maybe they’d have a moment at the forge where he could drop to his knees and give Nick the relief he needed.

That blissful fantasy flopped hard as Bax approached for forge only to hear voices. It was warm enough that Nick had taken down the canvas walls surrounding the forge, leaving the whole thing open to the elements. A second too late, Bax remembered Nick’s class schedule for the spring session meant he taught at nine in the morning on Mondays.

Instead of slipping into the forge to ask his boyfriend’s permission to contact someone who might be interested in him and to give him a blow-job, Bax showed up just in time to interrupt Nick giving his initial safety talk to the half-dozen adult students taking his blacksmithing class. It seemed somehow fitting that Nick’s almost completed unicorn statue grinned down at him from the corner of the forge, reminding him of something else that demanded Nick’s attention before him.

Whatever sullen emotions tried to reach up and ruin Bax’s mood, they were thwarted as soon as Nick saw him approaching and broke into a smile. That smile shot straight to Bax’s heart, letting him know everything would be alright.

Nick continued with his lecture, which was basically, “Don’t do anything stupid and don’t touch hot coals without protective gloves”, but his arrival had been noticed. A few of the students twisted to take a look at him as Bax walked into the forge.

One of those students, who was seated near the back, was Callum.

“Oh, hello,” Callum said, momentarily ignoring Nick’s lesson. “Fancy seeing you here.”

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